


I was a fool to trust you

by myrish_lace



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And so she hits him with some hard truths, Anger, Angst, Basically Jon's an asshole here and isn't playing Daenerys in any way, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, One Shot, Parentage Reveal, Revenge, Sansa is pissed at Jon for giving up the North, Season 7 made me really angry okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12264846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrish_lace/pseuds/myrish_lace
Summary: Jon Snow returns to Winterfell with Daenerys Targaryen, after naming her Queen in the North. Sansa is furious at how easily Jon gave up the kingdom they'd both worked so hard to win back.With help from Jaime Lannister, her sworn shield, Sansa sows seeds of jealousy, and tears into Jon, before revealing his true parentage to him. Her revenge is almost enough to heal the hole in her heart.





	I was a fool to trust you

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my attempt at breaking through writer's block. I've been furious at Jon post-Season 7 myself, and that will definitely come across. This story is very dialogue-heavy, and it's probably not the best thing I've ever written, but it got my creative juices flowing. I hope you enjoy it!

Sansa clenched her fists. She couldn’t stay quiet forever – she’d been the one to invite Jaime into her solar, after all.

She’d snapped after Jon had smiled at a jest from Daenerys at dinner. The smile had been half-hearted, but it galled her all the same.

She was done with this farce. Jon had offered up the North as if it was a jewel Daenerys could wear around her neck, and now he fawned over her. He was oblivious to the lives he'd put at risk.

She’d abruptly asked Jaime to escort her to her chambers, pretending to have a headache.

Now Jaime stood near the fireplace. She’d poured them both wine, her hands shaking only a little, and retreated to her desk. Jaime never asked to sit in her presence. He’d stand there all night, no doubt growing uncomfortable in his armor, unless Sansa instructed him otherwise.

Finally, Jaime put his glass down carefully on the mantle. “I didn’t expect to find a lady like my sister here at Winterfell.”

Sansa kept her face neutral. “I’m nothing like Cersei.”

Jaime tilted his head. “That’s not entirely true. Before you spit venom at me – something Cersei would have done too, by the way - consider what I have to say. You’re a queen.”

“I’m the Lady of Winterfell.”

“Yes, those are the words that come out of your lords’ mouths, but you’re smarter than that, Lady Sansa. You see how they defer to you, even as Daenerys Targaryen deliberately flies her dragons thrice daily overhead, just to try to snatch back a scrap of the respect you already have. They’d follow you, they already do, and you’re smart enough to know it and not show it. Though I’m not sure how much longer Daenerys can control herself. You have everything she wants.”

“She has Jon,” Sansa spat. She moved quickly to compose herself. “I only mean...”

“I know what you mean,” Jaime said with more gentleness than she’d thought possible. “He’s by her side, he gave her a kingdom that wasn’t his to give, and he beds her.”

Sansa inhaled slowly, through her nose. She was loathe to admit how the thought of Jon and his queen together enraged her. “It’s not my concern who he beds.”

“It is, since his heirs would threaten your claim to Winterfell. I’ve heard the same gossip you have, that Daenerys can’t conceive. But nothing’s certain in this world.”

Jaime lifted his golden hand. Firelight danced along its polished surface.

The Smiling Knight, fallen from greatness. Sansa thought. She still hadn’t forgiven Jaime, for what he’d done to Bran. She remembered her shock the day Bran told her the truth.

But Bran had forgiven Jaime, stating flatly that Bran Stark was dead, and the dead needed no apologies. Sansa had cried herself to sleep that night. She’d found it in her heart to be civil to Jaime after that, though.

And Jaime had been kind to her, each time she'd departed from a room soon after Jon had entered it. He'd escorted her, as her sworn shield should, and asked no questions.

Tonight, it seemed, wine had loosened his tongue. Perhaps he’d noticed the bitter twist of Sansa’s mouth just before she turned to him and asked to leave the great hall.

Jaime sighed. “My lady, try as Daenerys might, she can’t hold onto Jon’s heart. He doesn’t love her. He might be infatuated with her. But he loves you.”

Sansa scoffed. “Thank you for your wise counsel, Ser Jaime. Imagine a brother loving his sister.” Inwardly, she was trembling. 

Jaime only smirked. “Pure and noble, a brother’s love, isn’t it? I’m living proof it’s not.”

Sansa’s heart beat faster. “We are not Lannisters.”

“No. You let shame stand in your way. I think Jon threw himself into that woman’s arms because he was running from feelings he has for you. Feelings Cersei and I embraced from the day we were born.” Jaime hesitated.  “Forgive me, but I believe you share those feelings too.”

Terror gripped her. She'd been so careful, not to tip her hand. To keep her tainted, repulsive feelings to herself.

She lashed out. “Here in the North we don’t tolerate incest. Here in the North, Ser Jaime, your children would be abominations.”

Jaime remained calm. “That’s not a no, Lady Sansa.”

She rose, ready to dismiss him.

Jaime held out his good hand. 

“Please, my lady, it’s written all over both of you. You hide it better – you hide everything better – so I think perhaps only Tyrion and I suspect. But Jon – Jon’s a love-struck boy each time he tries to catch your eye."

"He can be whatever he likes. I have no time for him. I have less affection for him."

Jaime inclined his head. "You hate him for what he did. That's understandable. He should have told you. He should have fought for you. He could have died on that outrageously foolish wight hunt, died without telling you how he felt.”

Sansa took a sip of wine to steady her nerves. The sour taste lingered on her tongue. She wanted to shock Jaime, to take control of the conversation, and most importantly, to deny how deeply she cared for Jon.

“Perhaps that would have been for the best.”

Jaime only chuckled. “That’s the difference between you and Cersei, my lady. She took what she wanted, regardless of the consequences. You’re smarter. Sadder, but smarter. You shut him out, and it hurts you.”

How could she let Jon in again, when he'd broken the trust she placed in him? She’d worked until candles burned down to stubs, stocking the granaries with food, nurturing a fragile peace between the Wildlings and the Northerners.

She’d done it diligently, eager for Jon to see how she’d repaid the faith he'd had in her, when he gave her the North. Winterfell had flourished in his absence. 

Now all she felt was danger, in the home they had won back together. But she couldn’t prove Jaime right. She cleared her throat, and changed the subject.

“Daenerys's presence threatens the North. I do not think she can be set aside as easily as you claim, Ser Jaime. She’s inside these walls, she governs this kingdom in name, and names mean something." Sansa twirled the stem of her wine glass. "She’s taken my home from me.”

Jaime shrugged. Sansa could barely hear the rasp of his armor from across the room. "So take it back. You could wrest control from Daenerys, even with those great beasts at her disposal." 

Sansa shook her head. The risks were too large, the outcome uncertain. She thought, not for the first time, that Jaime's headstrong nature might lead to his downfall. 

Jaime took a step towards Sansa, then stopped. "Then go to Jon, at least, to secure your happiness. I’m almost certain you could manage it with one glance. He’d be at your door begging for forgiveness." Jaime scanned her face. "But you’ve denied him that chance.”

“And I will continue to do so.”

Jaime gave her a small bow. His blond hair fell across his forehead.

“As you wish, my lady.” He truly was handsome, Sansa mused. Handsome enough that lords pulled their wives closer when he walked by...

Sansa paled as an idea snuck into her head. She couldn’t ask it of Jaime, surely, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be proper.

Then she thought of Jon, laughing as Daenerys spoke, strolling with her through the halls of the Starks' ancestral home. Fury coursed through her veins. Jon had betrayed her when he let Daenerys Targaryen ride into her new Northern kingdom, and he compounded that betrayal every day.

Sansa took a deep breath. Let her engage in one petty act. Even though she and Jon were family. Even though she had once believed in him.

Let him pay for what he’d done.

Sansa lifted her chin. “I do not like you, Ser Jaime. But I respect the vow you’ve sworn to me, and I am grateful for it.”

Oddly, this speech – which to her seemed scarcely enough to thank Jaime, and likely to irritate him – made him blush.

“Thank you Lady Sansa,” he said with all the formality of the first moment he’d walked past Daenerys Targaryen to lay his sword at her feet.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

“Please.” He gestured for her to continue. “Tell me how you plan to make Jon jealous.”

Jaime was quick, she had to concede that. “Understand I hold no affection for you.”

“I do,” he said, more solemnly than she expected. “I am under no illusions there, my lady. But I do not need your affection in order to serve you.”

“I want...I want to make Jon regret the choices that he’s made.”

Jaime’s gaze could almost be soft. “It will be lovely to see you smile.”

***

Sansa found Sam and Bran waiting outside her door the next morning. They'd come to her for counsel, burdened with a great secret. She listened, stunned, as they recounted the story of Jon's parents. She assured them she'd bring Jon to them when the time was right.

She summoned Jon that evening. She’d asked Jaime to stand near her, near enough that she could reach out and touch his armor. As Jon closed the door to her solar, Jaime bent down to whisper in her ear. Sansa made sure she laughed sweetly.

She looked up to see Jon scowling. A fine start.

Jon strode up to her desk. “Sansa, please, if we might speak alone-“

“Anything you have to say you can say before my sworn shield, Jon. There are no secrets between us.”

Jon’s jaw twitched. He saw what his darkest insecurities made him see, even when Sansa and Jaime were perfectly chaste.

“Please, Jon, sit.”

Jon took the chair opposite Sansa’s desk. She felt more secure with the large table between them. It was littered with the letters she’d been writing to stitch the North back together, after Jon’s disastrous scroll.

She stacked the papers and tucked them into a drawer. “Letters I’ve been writing to make sure the lords stay in line since your...announcement."

Jon smiled warmly. “I knew you’d take excellent care of our home, Sansa.” He leaned back in his chair, seeming confident all was right between them.

Sansa almost slapped him.

“The North is no longer your home," she hissed. "You’ve made your home between the legs of the queen you brought to our door. You swore to your subjects before you left that the North was a part of you. That you’d never stop fighting for it. Then you gave it up like a shiny bauble to a child. Perhaps before you bedded her. Perhaps after.”

Jon had grace enough to look abashed.

“Were you coerced, Jon? Threatened? Was there no other way?”

 _Lie_ , a small part of her heart pleaded. _Lie, and save us_.

The one quality Jon had retained was honesty. “No,” he said wearily. “No, Daenerys had already offered to help.”

Sansa fell silent. Cold as stone. She closed herself off from the pain she saw etched into the lines on Jon's face. 

Jon kept trying. “She was distraught. Her dragon had been killed. She thinks of them as her children,” he confided, as if Daenerys hadn’t made that perfectly clear, as if Sansa needed the simplest facts explained to her.

Sansa remained at her desk. She would not go to him. She would not comfort him. She would not – would _not_ – be moved by the tears that threatened to spill down Jon’s cheeks.

“It was a moment of weakness,” Jon said. He put his head in his hands.

 _Weakness_.

Sansa had learned, painfully, over the years, as men wounded her body and tried to manipulate her mind, that weakness was a word men used to avoid saying _appetite_.

Petyr’s appetite for Sansa as a replacement for her dead mother. Ramsay’s insatiable appetite for cruelty.

Jon’s appetite for a silver-haired, self-proclaimed queen who'd held him captive.

When men indulged their hunger, Sansa bore the brunt of the damage. Petyr’s poisonous whispers. Ramsay’s brutal beatings. But Jon – Jon’s indulgence shattered the faith she’d slowly, cautiously begun to place in him.

She could never have dreamed that Jon would return to her so diminished, so...predictable.

 _I’ll protect you, I promise_.

Until the day a beautiful woman came along and changed Jon into a man she didn’t know.

She’d been a fool to trust him, a fool to hold him apart from other men, as if he might truly keep her safe, as if she might find an equal partner to help her rebuild Winterfell.

Jon shifted uncomfortably. “I could take back her title as queen, Sansa, if you’d only-“

Sansa employed all her training and restraint to keep from screaming. “You named a Targaryen woman with two full-grown dragons Queen in the North. You’ve long since forfeited the power to take her title back. You can’t undo what you’ve done.”

_I hope bedding her at night is worth what you've lost._

Jon protested. “Sansa I didn’t – you know I wouldn’t–“

“I know you slept with a dangerous woman in the middle of a war without marrying her. I know you risked bringing a bastard into the world to satisfy your lust.”

Jon’s cheeks were red. “As my father did, you mean. You seek to shame me.”

Sansa turned her head. “Ser Jaime, leave us please.”

Jaime bowed and left.

Sansa shouldn’t thrill at the thought of revenge. She shouldn’t smile before she delivered the killing blow. But she couldn’t keep her lips from curving.

“No. Not your father, Jon. Do you remember when I told you that you were a Stark to me?”

Jon eyes were rimmed with red. “if you had any idea, what that meant to me–“

Sansa held up her hand. _S_ _top_. "I was wrong. You’re not a Stark.”

The words hit him like a physical blow. He recovered his voice after a moment. “Sansa, how could you–“

“Your father was not Ned Stark. Your father was Rhaegar Targaryen.” Sansa didn’t mention Lyanna, not yet. She wanted Jon to feel the full weight of having his name – his false name – stripped away from him, as he’d stripped the North from her. Let him feel crushed and adrift as she had, the day she unrolled his scroll.

“Your name is Aegon Targaryen, and Daenerys, your queen, is your aunt.’

Jon blanched.

“Sansa, I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. I’ll take you to Bran, and to Sam. Bran can tell you of the wedding of your real parents, and Sam can show you the marriage records memorializing their union. You should know the truth of your Targaryen heritage, after all."

Jon was white as a sheet. His chest was heaving.

Sansa swallowed past the lump in her throat. She would show him no mercy, despite the memory that came to her unbidden, of when she'd assured Brienne of Jon's worthiness.

_Jon is Jon. He’s my brother, he’ll keep me safe. I trust him._

Except Jon was Aegon, Aegon Targaryen. And Aegon was a stranger. 

She swept out of her chair and opened the door.

“Please, follow me." 


End file.
